Spent Casings: The Cold as Ice Remix
by Mara Greengrass
Summary: Bobby finds out about Emma and Scott. (This is an AU of New X-Men 139, written for the Remix Redux Challenge)


TITLE: Spent Casings: The Cold as Ice Remix  
  
AUTHOR: Mara Greengrass  
  
AUTHOR'S EMAIL: fishfolkix.netcom.com. Feedback is better than chocolate.  
  
PERMISSION TO ARCHIVE: Remix website only, please.  
  
CATEGORY: Drama/angst  
  
RATINGS/WARNINGS: PG for a fair amount of bad language  
  
SUMMARY: Bobby finds out about Emma and Scott. (This is an AU of New X-Men 139, "Shattered," the first part to the Murder in the Mansion story line.)  
  
DISCLAIMER: The X-Men characters and universe belong to Marvel, and many other people with expensive lawyers, not me.   
  
NOTES: This was written for the Remix Redux Challenge and it is a remix of Cherry Ice's story "Spent Casings." You can find the original on her site. I didn't much like where Morrison went with New X-Men, so I was pleased to take this opportunity to rewrite a small part of it.

* * *

Emma wondered if Bobby would hit her. It wasn't likely, really, he was too fundamentally a "nice" guy, even in these straitened circumstances. She wondered idly how hard she'd have to push him before he'd do it. And what would happen to him afterward.  
  
"Are you even listening to me?" he growled, leaning against the wall of her bedroom.  
  
She inspected her boots for bloodstains. "Yes, I am. You were asking me what the fuck I was doing."   
  
"And you weren't answering."  
  
"No, I wasn't."  
  
There was a long silence and she took the opportunity to check herself in the mirror. It was one thing to enjoy a good catfight with one's rival, but to remain disheveled afterward was severely déclassé.  
  
Of course, Bobby would likely point out that sleeping with a married man was tacky, but he couldn't possibly understand how her world worked, could he?  
  
The drop of blood at the corner of her mouth she carefully dabbed away, sensing Bobby's reluctant desire as he watched. A small smile graced her lips at her ability to arouse him even at a time like this. Of course, that was really so typical of the male mind, wasn't it? Think of your woman with another man...want to have sex with your woman.  
  
Not that she was his woman, but in the primitive male mind, she knew that thought lurked.  
  
"Scott. You're really--"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Scott-fucking-Summers."  
  
"Can't pull the wool over your eyes, now can I?" She picked up a silver-backed brush and began to run it through her hair. It tugged out several clumps, loosened by her recent altercation, but she hardly noticed. If only it was that easy--  
  
"Why?"  
  
She considered her reflection for a long moment, watching Bobby's face in the mirror. "Because I can," she said after a while.   
  
He sat down on the bed, looking amusingly like a guppy, mouth gaping and wheezing a bit. "Because you can? You're having sex with Scott Summers because you can."  
  
"Yes."  
  
He threw himself backward on the bed, covering his face with his hands. "I can't fucking believe it."  
  
"Such language, darling."  
  
"Fuck you."  
  
"You've already done that. In fact, you'd like to do it again. You'd take me right now, if I'd let you. Up against the wall, so you could prove something. You want to sit across the table from him this evening and know you had me screaming."  
  
He shook his head, not in denial of her statement, but in dismissal of it as irrelevant. "Why did you start the fight with Jean?"  
  
"I didn't--"  
  
"Don't give me that shit. You won. You had him, she didn't. Why piss off Jean until she jumped on you? Why whisper those little dirty secrets into her mind until she lost it? I didn't know you were that vindictive."  
  
"Why shouldn't I?"  
  
"Because you'd already won."  
  
"Had I?" She put her hair up, patting a few errant strands into place absently. "What had I won?"  
  
"Scott."  
  
She turned around, automatically noting his tensed muscles as he sat on her bed. "What makes you think I wanted Scott?"  
  
His jaw dropped again. "Wha..."  
  
"Do close your mouth, or you're going to catch flies. My mother always said that." Emma went to the closet as she tried to decide whether to change her outfit. One advantage of wearing so little: There wasn't much to damage, even in a fight.  
  
"If you didn't want Scott..."  
  
"Hmm?" She decided to leave her outfit as it was, just adding her diamond studs. "Oh, the same reason I started the fight with Jean. Curiosity."  
  
This time he didn't even ask, just waited for her to explain, and she bestowed a smile and laugh on him. He didn't smile back. "I wanted to see if they could hurt me, of course. Don't you see, nothing can hurt me now."  
  
His blue eyes grew wide and she laughed again. "Nothing can hurt me because there's nothing left to hurt."  
  
Humming, she went back to contemplating her image in the mirror.  
  
--end-- 


End file.
